01 May 2011

Alice in Interland

'Oh dear, oh dear. Not again!' exlaimed Alice, falling down another rabbit hole, this time promising to herself not to drink
anything that said 'DRINK ME' on the bottle, or to eat anything that said 'EAT ME' on the label, no matter how sugar coated or jam filled or otherwise tempting it looked.

She landed on a sand dune next to some, (possibly American, it was hard to tell), special services personnel operating laptops.

'What are you doing?' asked Alice, trying to shake the sand out of her dress.

'We're sending drones to attack the Gaddaffles with rockets,' answered one of them, poking the ENTER key with a grubby finger.

'Oh, I see,' said Alice, who didn't really at all. 'Will it hurt?'

'Oh, I expect so.... probably, very much.' said the soldier.

'But you won't actually be there to see?' queried Alice.

'Well, no, not exactly: but we will see it, sort of, on the screen,' said the soldier, turning his laptop round for Alice to watch the buildings explode on the little screen.

'Ahhh, I see,' said Alice 'it's a sort of computer game then? The Gadaffles must be very naughty,' observed Alice. '

'Some of them are VERY naughty and some of them are a bit naughty and some of them are not really all that naughty at all.' replied the one who seemed to be in charge.

'Your rockets,' queried Alice, seeing through the eyes of the distant drone, 'can tell the difference then?'

'Ah, well, no, not exactly, that is, not precisely, not 100% accurately, no, they can't,' admitted the leader.

'You really mean not at all, don't you?' exclaimed Alice, thinking 'I am beginning not to like this particular Rabbit Hole all that very much.'

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